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On January 26 2024 10:47 BlackJack wrote: If I were Biden’s team I would definitely advise him to not have any debates. He did okay at them 4 years ago but who knows what will happen now. You can really only get away with ending sentences by drifting off into mutterings on friendly territory. Besides he already has the perfect excuse - Trump being a danger to democracy and not wanting to give him a platform.
Trump has been getting away with incoherently rambling on for at least a decade now.
Yeah, comparing Trump to Biden and then pretending like Biden is the incoherend mentally deteriorating one is just about the dumbest thing I've heard this week.
Eh I think you can make the argument that theres a bigger difference between biden 16 years ago and biden today than trump 16 years ago and trump today and thus that his decline has been bigger.
Imo Biden and Trump are both hindered by their age, Biden by being 81, trump by being 12. And I dont think Biden could pull off the same showing he did against Paul Ryan 12 years ago today. Saying biden is unfit because of his gaffes and thus we should go with trump is obviously nonsense, but in any live debate i think there would be a not-insignificant risk that Biden would end up looking his age.
That said, I think the meme machine has done a pretty solid job making biden appear more declined than he really is (which is not to deny that there's a real effect of his age present), so participating in a debate strikes me as reasonable, cause I dont think he is likely to do worse than expected.
If not Biden then who. It had to be an old conservative white guy because that’s what Americans like to vote for. And given the consistent proven value incumbent advantage in elections they’d be unwise to throw that away. Plus Biden beat Trump once already by enough to overcome incumbent advantage.
It’s not like there’s some secret amazing candidate in the DNC dungeon who they’re keeping locked up to push Biden on an unwilling populace. Biden is the best shot. You may not be happy that he’s the best shot but that doesn’t make him not the best shot.
Just generally responding to the challenges to Biden as a candidate, not specifically anyone. Though I will note the US doesn’t have the highest GDP per capita, countries like Norway are substantially richer. If Norway were to put their sovereign wealth fund in Apple stock they could probably retire as a country and live off the dividends, that’s how rich (and underpopulated) they are. Just everyone gets UBI forever.
On January 27 2024 03:21 KwarK wrote: Just generally responding to the challenges to Biden as a candidate, not specifically anyone. Though I will note the US doesn’t have the highest GDP per capita, countries like Norway are substantially richer. If Norway were to put their sovereign wealth fund in Apple stock they could probably retire as a country and live off the dividends, that’s how rich (and underpopulated) they are. Just everyone gets UBI forever.
We could try Feeling the Bern again. That's an old white dude
Just throw Abbott in jail for ignoring a Supreme Court order. That’s why we have courts. He doesn’t need to federalize anything, the successor can either follow the court order or join Abbott.
On January 26 2024 23:40 Mikau wrote: Yeah, comparing Trump to Biden and then pretending like Biden is the incoherend mentally deteriorating one is just about the dumbest thing I've heard this week.
I'm guessing that has to do with your personal biases and/or the expectation of Biden has become so low that we don't even care if he can finish his sentences anymore. It's now a daily occurrence. Here's some clips of him speaking the last few days where his sentences are simply unintelligible.
It's fine if you are at campaign rallies and the people will laugh/cheer without even understanding what you're saying, but I don't think it would work on a debate stage to just end sentences with random mutterings.
The point isn't that no other politician has ever made gaffes, the point is that it's literally every single time he speaks in public he says things which are unintelligible.
On January 27 2024 03:08 KwarK wrote: If not Biden then who. It had to be an old conservative white guy because that’s what Americans like to vote for. And given the consistent proven value incumbent advantage in elections they’d be unwise to throw that away. Plus Biden beat Trump once already by enough to overcome incumbent advantage.
It’s not like there’s some secret amazing candidate in the DNC dungeon who they’re keeping locked up to push Biden on an unwilling populace. Biden is the best shot. You may not be happy that he’s the best shot but that doesn’t make him not the best shot.
Gavin Newsom would be an obvious choice as someone with presidential ambitions, looks the part, and has experience managing one of the world's largest economies. He was deterred from running by Biden's decision to seek a second term which is the only reason we can now say "look there's nobody else."
On January 26 2024 23:40 Mikau wrote: Yeah, comparing Trump to Biden and then pretending like Biden is the incoherend mentally deteriorating one is just about the dumbest thing I've heard this week.
I'm guessing that has to do with your personal biases and/or the expectation of Biden has become so low that we don't even care if he can finish his sentences anymore. It's now a daily occurrence. Here's some clips of him speaking the last few days where his sentences are simply unintelligible.
It's fine if you are at campaign rallies and the people will laugh/cheer without even understanding what you're saying, but I don't think it would work on a debate stage to just end sentences with random mutterings.
The point isn't that no other politician has ever made gaffes, the point is that it's literally every single time he speaks in public he says things which are unintelligible.
And that's precisely the same as Trump. That's all we're saying. No one is saying that Biden makes zero verbal mistakes or has the same mental acuity has he did years ago. It's just as easy to post a ton of Trump clips as it is Biden clips; every single speech (to say nothing of the tweets) that Trump gives has gaffes and slurred speech and issues similar to the ones you posted of Biden. In terms of age-related issues and mental deterioration and cognitive/verbal mess-ups, it's approximately a draw, which is why we might as well look at their policies and past presidencies.
I'd also think that most people here agree that it is silly that both candidates are way past any sensible retirement age.
It just makes no sense that the best that a country of 300 million people is supposed to be able to produce is two guys in their late 70s or 80s. Shaping the future should be done by people who will still live to see it.
But that is who we get, and now you gotta choose the best out of those two. And the best out of those two is probably not the incompetent corrupt criminal manchild bully.
On January 26 2024 23:40 Mikau wrote: Yeah, comparing Trump to Biden and then pretending like Biden is the incoherend mentally deteriorating one is just about the dumbest thing I've heard this week.
I'm guessing that has to do with your personal biases and/or the expectation of Biden has become so low that we don't even care if he can finish his sentences anymore. It's now a daily occurrence. Here's some clips of him speaking the last few days where his sentences are simply unintelligible.
It's fine if you are at campaign rallies and the people will laugh/cheer without even understanding what you're saying, but I don't think it would work on a debate stage to just end sentences with random mutterings.
The point isn't that no other politician has ever made gaffes, the point is that it's literally every single time he speaks in public he says things which are unintelligible.
And that's precisely the same as Trump. That's all we're saying. No one is saying that Biden makes zero verbal mistakes or has the same mental acuity has he did years ago. It's just as easy to post a ton of Trump clips as it is Biden clips; every single speech (to say nothing of the tweets) that Trump gives has gaffes and slurred speech and issues similar to the ones you posted of Biden. In terms of age-related issues and mental deterioration and cognitive/verbal mess-ups, it's approximately a draw, which is why we might as well look at their policies and past presidencies.
If you think it's approximately a draw you're surely entitled to your opinion. Polling shows significantly more people think Biden is "too old to run" compared to Trump so your perception is not reflected in the greater voting population.
On January 27 2024 05:37 Simberto wrote: I'd also think that most people here agree that it is silly that both candidates are way past any sensible retirement age.
It just makes no sense that the best that a country of 300 million people is supposed to be able to produce is two guys in their late 70s or 80s. Shaping the future should be done by people who will still live to see it.
But that is who we get, and now you gotta choose the best out of those two. And the best out of those two is probably not the incompetent corrupt criminal manchild bully.
I think the greater irony here is that the Republicans are choosing perhaps the only candidate that Biden is capable of beating and the Democrats are choosing perhaps the only candidate that Trump is capable of beating. If either party presented some average candidate that could read from a teleprompter and wasn't a few decades past their cognitive prime they would probably win easily, but obviously neither party prefers that over their guy.
On January 26 2024 23:40 Mikau wrote: Yeah, comparing Trump to Biden and then pretending like Biden is the incoherend mentally deteriorating one is just about the dumbest thing I've heard this week.
I'm guessing that has to do with your personal biases and/or the expectation of Biden has become so low that we don't even care if he can finish his sentences anymore. It's now a daily occurrence. Here's some clips of him speaking the last few days where his sentences are simply unintelligible.
It's fine if you are at campaign rallies and the people will laugh/cheer without even understanding what you're saying, but I don't think it would work on a debate stage to just end sentences with random mutterings.
The point isn't that no other politician has ever made gaffes, the point is that it's literally every single time he speaks in public he says things which are unintelligible.
And that's precisely the same as Trump. That's all we're saying. No one is saying that Biden makes zero verbal mistakes or has the same mental acuity has he did years ago. It's just as easy to post a ton of Trump clips as it is Biden clips; every single speech (to say nothing of the tweets) that Trump gives has gaffes and slurred speech and issues similar to the ones you posted of Biden. In terms of age-related issues and mental deterioration and cognitive/verbal mess-ups, it's approximately a draw, which is why we might as well look at their policies and past presidencies.
If you think it's approximately a draw you're surely entitled to your opinion. Polling shows significantly more people think Biden is "too old to run" compared to Trump so your perception is not reflected in the greater voting population.
That's not the same thing though. Of course an older person is more likely to be "too old" than a younger person. That doesn't mean that Trump is coherent or articulate.
Also, I assume that people are more likely to focus on Biden's age because there aren't nearly as many substantive, political issues or criminal activities or incendiary rhetoric compared to Trump. When it comes to Trump, people care less about his age and more about his undermining of democracy.
EPT
